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Software Businesses

Developers Lose With Proprietary Software 394

Posted by michael from the wah-wah-wah-waaaaaaaaaaah dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Appgen looked like a nice cross-platform accounting program independent software developers could use as a base for custom applications, and lots of them paid $2000 or more for the company's development kits. Then Appgen went out of business and left all those developers stranded. They can't even generate license keys, and their support has disappeared. Nobody knows who now owns Appgen's code, so it looks like all those developers and their clients are screwed. This couldn't happen if Appgen was Open Source. There's a strong lesson in this story for those who choose to listen." Newsforge and Slashdot are both part of OSDN.
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Developers Lose With Proprietary Software More

Developers Lose With Proprietary Software

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  • ... news at eleven. (Score:5, Informative)

    by ultrabot ( 200914 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:03PM (#7302388)
    Don't be a Sharecropper [tbray.org].
    • That's a wonderful term to use! The MPAA and the like are using "pirate" (and misusing it, I might add), but "sharecropper" is a perfectly appropos term to use in reference to people that develop for closed platforms. Hopefully it will catch on. Maybe one day we'll see computing companies advertise things like, "We don't use sharecropping technology, so you can always depend on our products in the future." as marketing drizzle, and people will understand it.
    • Sorry, that page's arguments don't make sense. It basically argues that developing for the web is empowering for users and makes for more profitable software development, whereas developing thick client applications is disempowering for users and makes for less profitable software for developers. Oh yeah, unless you write server side Unix code, in which case whatever you do is good.

      Uh, whatever happened to using the right tool for the right job and making sensible engineering and business tradeoffs? So

      • Did you not finish the article? Tim Bray writes at the end:

        The Exception
        Which is not to say that the browser is the right answer for everything. Here's an overgeneralization which I think works. Computer applications, excluding games, fall into one of three baskets: information retrieval, database interaction, and content creation. History shows that the Web browser, or something like it, is the right way to do the first two. Which leaves content creation.

      • Re:... news at eleven. (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Feztaa ( 633745 )
        whatever happened to using the right tool for the right job

        I think what he was trying to say is that the Right Tool stops being right when you're not allowed to use it anymore (ie, if the company folds).

        Therefore, it's better to use a tool that's 90% right, if it'll be there forever, as opposed to a tool that's 100%, but might be gone tomorrow.

  • Source code escrow (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sphealey ( 2855 ) * on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:07PM (#7302416)
    This couldn't happen if Appgen was Open Source. There's a strong lesson in this story for those who choose to listen.
    Yes, the lesson is: don't buy a propriatary app without a 3rd party source-code escrow agreement. That was figured out around 1965.

    sPh

    • Actually, the article states that several Value Added Resellers had contracts that specified Escrow of source code. They didn't expand on it much, but it sounds like the "Escrow" was a sham into itself.

      • Re:Source code escrow (Score:4, Informative)

        by RocketJeff ( 46275 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:15PM (#7302518) Homepage
        Never agree to a source code escrow agreement that doesn't call for periodically audits of the escrow. If you don't audit the escrow, don't depend on it really existing.

        It's just like doing backups - if you never test your backup, it won;t work when you need it.
        • Hindsight is 20/20. Given the apparent vigor of AppGen, I'm sure that the VARs weren't concerned that this would happen. Only experience teaches you that appearances can be deceiving.
      • but it sounds like the "Escrow" was a sham into itself.
        Good point. I had thought to say "with a reputable third party", but the only unimpeachable third party I could think of was Arthur Andersen...

        sPh

    • Escrow and bankruptcy (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ProfDumb ( 67790 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:29PM (#7302655)

      Yes, the lesson is: don't buy a propriatary app without a 3rd party source-code escrow agreement. That was figured out around 1965.

      So, you have a contract that specifies software escrow. And when the company goes bankrupt and you find the source is not in escrow (or not all of the source is in escrow, or there is third-party IP in the escrowed source, or ...):

      who are you going to sue?

      An escrow agreement is likely to be enforceable right up until the moment you need it.

      The difference with open source is that you have the source in hand now and so if the company disappears you don't have to sue a non-existant entity to get the code.

      • Re:Escrow and bankruptcy (Score:5, Informative)

        by sphealey ( 2855 ) * on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:39PM (#7302735)
        And when the company goes bankrupt and you find the source is not in escrow (or not all of the source is in escrow, or there is third-party IP in the escrowed source, or ...):

        who are you going to sue?

        The escrowee. That's what he is for. If he doesn't subrogate against the supplier's officers as individuals, them too. Although they are probably bankrupt you can still take away their childrens' college fund.

        Look, I am in personal agreement with the author's basic point: there are a lot of advantages to open source for software users. But there are solutions to this problem in the propriatary world too, and propriatary methods cannot be condemned under the theory that there are no such methods.

        sPh

        • Re:Escrow and bankruptcy (Score:5, Informative)

          by irix ( 22687 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @02:49PM (#7303528) Journal

          The problem with source escrow is that it is only useful in the same was as your tape backups - if it is tested.

          Sure, your escrow agreement probably says the source tree plus everything required to build the product from scratch (build environment, 3rd party libraries). But how do you know that is being done? The escrowee typically would have no idea.

          With an escrow agreement you are going somewhat on the good faith of the company to provide everything required to the escrowee in a timely manner. Depending on who the vendor is you may or may not be able to trust that.

          This isn't to say that escrow is not a good idea, but from an end-user point of view it isn't nearly as good as a public CVS repository. However, for a closed-source product it is better than nothing.

    • Thanks for pointing out that the OSS generation is not the first to prepare for the life cycle of a company.

      Personally, I think the best way to design a programming company is to come out of the gate as a proprietary technology, then to have an end game where the technology turns into open source as the technology matures. The paradigm where things start and end free just means developers never get paid.

      • Re:OSS as the end game (Score:5, Interesting)

        by cduffy ( 652 ) <charles+slashdot@dyfis.net> on Friday October 24, 2003 @02:24PM (#7303211)
        The paradigm where things start and end free just means developers never get paid.

        My last job paid for writing and supporting Free Software because that's what the company did (and does -- they're still around, and I understand in better financial shape now than when I left). My current job is at a company that writes proprietary software -- but we use Free Software to do it, so when we need a bugfix or an extension, my present employer, a proprietary software company, still pays me to work on Free Software.

        My employer before the last two was a car dealership; they hired me as a contractor to move their base platform to Free Software. Before that I spent some time helping a school district set up some servers running on (you guessed it) Free Software. Same kind of business: They hit a bug or need a feature, I'm the guy to write it. (Not that either of those two *did* hit bugs or missing features, but the capability was one of the things they got when they hired me).

        This myth that folks never get paid for working on Free Software is just that -- a myth -- and needs to die.
    • Yes yes, it all works in *theory*.

      I'm now a project manager on a project where we just need to make some slight changes to a pre-built app. We have no documentation, (no docs of ANY kind), we got 24MB of source files that plain don't compile (even under their 'intended' environment), and we got a 70 table db schema; again, no documentation. The company hasn't been in business in MANY years, and was bought out, and the parent company doesn't care to fix the app (or send documentation). Better yet, the devel
    • I'm not asking this to be smarmy, I'm really curious, and I hope that I can get an answer, even though this reply is late in the thread. Every time I've seen software escrow (from both sides), it was a last-minute thing, and not really thought through well. On the developer side, every quarter, the lowest developer on the totem pole was asked to tar up a source tree, put it on tape, and FedEx it to the escrow company. Was that tree buildable? Who knows? Did it correspond to any version we shipped? Do

    • Re:Source code escrow (Score:3, Informative)

      by Chazmyrr ( 145612 )
      Another lesson is: don't buy a proprietary app from a company until that company has been evaluated for stability and the company has posted a bond against non-performance.

      We don't buy applications from anyone that hasn't passed a strict evaluation. Financial stability, current or pending litigation, etc. If there's any chance at all they won't be around in a couple years, we don't use their products.

  • From a Real World Experience... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Black-Man ( 198831 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:07PM (#7302417)
    We gave our source to our paying customers when we decided to drop the product and switch directions.

    Everyone seemed pleased with the arrangement, even though I doubt they were pleased when they got the gazillion lines of C++ code without support.

    And to think my idea of going open source was ridiculed by management 6 months before we flamed out.

    Sheesh...

  • As long as they open source after they go under (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The place where I work used a proprietary closed source library for Borland C++ Builder. The project was developed 5 years ago and the library was purchased from some vendor whose name I forgot.

    When faced with updates to the version 2.0, we found out the vendor went bankrupt. Luckily, they open-sourced the libraries and just put them up on SourceForge. I didn't really use their source code, just was thankful the libraries were there andfit the project under Borland C++.

  • .net (Score:3, Insightful)

    by heroine ( 1220 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:09PM (#7302438) Homepage
    This is a ripe story for a weblog which covers .net more than any other framework. Funny how no-one ever questions whether the .net we've been getting told to learn or face certain doom might be canned and never heard from again by its owner.

  • The Appgen product is expected to continue... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Deviate_X ( 578495 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:10PM (#7302448)

    For those looking for insight on this might look here:

    http://www.aaxnet.com/product/appgn.html [aaxnet.com]

    --------------

    10-Oct-03 - the Appgen company has closed - the Appgen product is expected to continue. There are groups currently working on acquiring rights to license the product and this issue should be resolved soon. Nothing is yet resolved about terms, pricing or VAR support.

    18-Oct-03 - people are still working to put together a deal, but the process has apparently been stalled a bit by the volume of badmouthing and threats (legal and physical) against those who were involved with the Appgen company. Cooperation would seem to be a much better tactic right now.

    You may contact me by email at aax@aaxnet.com and I will keep you updated on whatever I learn about this matter.- or just watch this space

    For people with licensing problems with Mybooks purchased directly from Appgen, this temporary solution has been proposed by an Appgen VAR.

    continued... [aaxnet.com]

  • Accounting for the story... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Merovign ( 557032 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:11PM (#7302460)
    #1 - serious question - how many serious accounting packages are being worked on in the open-source world? It's exactly the kind of software hackers usually denigrate...

    #2 - I think this is as much about poor planning (contract negotiations on the part of the developers, defining and/or selling and/or making a "will" for the software on the part of the owners) as it is about IP. And I'll bet somebody knows who owns it, they just haven't settled it yet.

    #3 - How many abandoned Open Source apps are there? I mean, sure, you won't have the key problem, but still. The grass may be greener, but it isn't self-mowing, self-watering, and immortal!

    Obligatory Criticism from Merovign. :)

    • Market Penetration (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Tony ( 765 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:21PM (#7302586) Journal
      #1 - serious question - how many serious accounting packages are being worked on in the open-source world? It's exactly the kind of software hackers usually denigrate...

      In my analysis, it isn't that open-source developers don't want to work on this sort of thing, it's that there is a certain amount of infrastructure that needs to be in place before projects like this can proceed. Several enterprise-class accounting projects have been started, but few finish; it's because the tools aren't in place yet.

      The FOSS community doesn't avoid doing corporate-type projects, as a lot of people claim. FOSS software is written because it is positioned properly to fullfill a need. Until very recently, FOSS was not accepted in the enterprise. Now, as more and more corporations are depending on various FOSS software, you will see many projects targetting medium-to-large corporations.

      For instance, look at the relatively-new GNU Enterprise [gnu.org] project. This is a major undertaking which has begun by creating the tools required to build an enterprise management infrastructure.

      As FOSS software penetrates various markets, you will see many FOSS projects building finance/hr/materials-management/analysis tools. I predict that 2004 will be the year of the enterprise for FOSS (Linux,*BSD,GNU). You'll see prepackaged medical management software, ERP software, etc. By the end of 2005 I believe you will see a complete enterprise management system, from supply chain to finance to HR to payroll.

      But maybe I'm just a pollyanna.
      • Don't forget that GNUcash [gnucash.org] and SQL Ledger [sql-ledger.org] already exist and are both GPL'd.

        • I always thought that GNUcash was more of a "personal finances" program, and the intro on their site seems to agree. I think that Appgen was more "corporate accounting".

          I'm certainly not bashing GNUcash; I use it myself, and you would sustain severe injury trying to take it from me. :) It also does seem like it would be possible for a small business to use it, as it does have AP and AR sections (which I use for roommates), though these don't seem to be tied to any sort of inventory system. But they do m
    • I don't know how many are out there but I can recomend SQL-Ledger as one good example. I think there was a Linux Journal article reviewing some of the options a few months back.
  • If they couldn't stay in business selling their code how would they expect to stay in business giving it away for free?

    • They still would go out of business, they just wouldn't screw their customers in the process.

      • And, if your company is going under, are you really that concerned about the customers?

        I can just see that conversation between an upper level manager and a lower level employee:

        Mgr: Bob, things aren't going well. We're shutting down the operations. You'll need to handle making sure that our customers get copies of the code so they don't get screwed. Once that's done, pack up your desk and leave your badge on the security desk.

        What do you think Bob would do in this situation. I know what I'd do. Each cus

    • As a prior post points out, you can still sell licenses. Open source != non-proprietary (though even I tend to muddle it up at times).

      As an example, I used to work in a OS390/COBOL/IDMS system for a large institution. When I was hired on I signed an NDA which covered not only thier internal IP but also that of their vendors and clients. We go the source code from our vendors (usually COBOL/JCL, but just before I left they were 'webifying' the mainframe using a vendor provided system running C/Perl/Cobol/JC

  • Use an escrow (Score:2, Redundant)

    by LadyLucky ( 546115 )
    Our company as part of the terms of sale state that if the company goes under, the source becomes available to all licensed customers through an escrow.

    Of course, I have no idea if it will be honoured :-)

    • god I wish people would rtfa. There are at least 10 posts saying they should have used a source escrow incase of this situation.

      The linked article says several of the VARs DID specify that exact thing, but when the company disappeared, the source escrow was discovered to be a lie.

      • Re:Use an escrow (Score:3, Insightful)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 )
        That's okay. Those VARs can now approach whoever acquires the code, and show it to them, and say "give me the source or I'll sue you into oblivion" - That escrow agreement is a legally binding agreement, right? Any agreements are transferred along with the software.
  • The same thing can happen with any non-open pieces of software... and even to some extent open-source ones. If the company providing support to your software goes down, then you eventually have little choice but to replace it in many cases.

    If you had an accounting package with a Y2K error and you package provider wasn't around anymore to provide the 2000 release you were pretty much hosed then, developer or no. The plus side to open-source is that if you do have developers, and they can read the code (and

    • Re:Why developers? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nmos ( 25822 )
      Even if you cannot afford the developer effort needed to completely take over a dead project OSS still gives you some additional options:

      1. Work with other stranded customers/users to share the cost of development.

      2. Hire just a single developer to handle immediate problems and buy some time.

      3. Find a replacement OSS project and pay one of the developers a months wages to create a conversion tool for your data.

  • Umm (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Mr_Silver ( 213637 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:14PM (#7302498)
    Now contrast this with an open source business model:

    1. Modify an open source software package to fit a niche market
    2. Sell installations, manuals, customization service, and support to that market
    3. Profit!

    Unfortunately I haven't seen many Open Source businesses manage to achieve point 3.

    I'm sure everyone can mention a few that have done so (Redhat and Cygwin spring to mind) but there are vastly more that have either fallen by the wayside or are resorting to begging for money (Mandrake?).

    Open Source is great, but it too isn't perfect ...

    • >Let's start with a closed source business model:
      >
      >1. Invest time and money to become a software VAR
      >2. Software publisher goes broke.
      >3. Big loss, no profit!

      How about:

      1. Write your own damn software, don't rely on proprietary junk that you have to pay for.
      2. Publish it your own damn self.
      3. Profit.
    • Why do you think businesses exist? If you walk into a marketing meeting of any business of a relatively large size, what is the key word you hear: Market Share. And what is market share? A partial monopoly which gives the company partial control over the market price of something.

      What if there was an industry that prevented anyone from gaining a lot of market share. What would it look like? Such industries DO exist:

      Doctore
      Lawyers
      Accountants
      Plumbers
      etc . . .

      There are exceptions to each of these examples (
  • Where you hire a lawyer. Seriously. Someone has the source, and the VAR's have been ripped off. This is when you go hire a lawyer and sue the guys. You're not out for big bucks (you might be), but you want the stuff they were supposed to give you. You need someone to check the bankrupcy filings, and you also need someone that these people CAN'T blow off. Alone, they will ignore you. With a lawyer, things suddenly get serious.
  • 1. Go to Google.com
    2. Search for "Appgen Crack"
    3. ????
    4. Profit!

    As for the source code, you're SOL.

  • Web site (Score:3, Interesting)

    by deblau ( 68023 ) <slashdot.25.flickboy@spamgourmet.com> on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:14PM (#7302509) Journal
    There seems to be a working Appgen web site here [unrealstudio.com], although the for-pay downloads aren't working.
  • It's called bad business practices and a risk everyone takes whenever they buy anything and do not research what they are buying and who they are buying it from.

    The real tip-off in the article is the fact they did the same thing with a previous program...I can't feel too much sympathy with individuals or companies doing business with a company but not doing a through check of who they are doing business with.

  • Learning is fun! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rabtech ( 223758 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:19PM (#7302562) Homepage
    "Learning is fun!" - Bender, Futurama. If you know this quote, you know that these people just learned an important lesson.

    "Code Escrow"

    If I am going to purchase components or make a decision to commit, I make sure that there is some sort of safety-net just in case the company fails. Often this comes in the form of a code escrow service. Every X days, the company ships off a copy of all their code to the service. If the company fails or there is a serious event, the escrow company releases the code.

    As a small developer that is a large expense, so for my customers, they already have the contact info for my off-site backup person. If anything happens to me, that person is instructed to freely distribute all source code. It is someone I trust.

    Or you could use your attorney.

    Off-site backups are a Good Thing(TM), and it only takes one extra small step to ensure that, should you perish, your work isn't left inaccessible. Whether that means a closed-source app or just your notes on an open source project.

  • Think how much worse this will be when.... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by nautical9 ( 469723 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:21PM (#7302589) Homepage
    ... every software company out there requires online Activation before you can use their product.

    Not only will reinstalling a computer takes AGES due to all the products you need to activate (and heaven forbid you changed some hardware - time to call them all up one-by-one and plead your case), but you won't even be able to install any package from a software company who has gone belly up.

  • When companies sell closed source solutions that other companies build on top of and come to be dependent on it's true there's big risks. The solution that seems to be suggested here is to build on open source projects. The problem: good luck finding a good, well documented, open source accounting system. Another solution is code escrow. Before you buy into a system like that make sure the vendor puts the source somewhere where the customers can get it if they fold and grants them the right to do so. T

  • The same situation exists with Microsoft's FoxPro, a database programming language like the old dBase. Microsoft has been giving FoxPro lukewarm development support. At one time there were 1,500,000 FoxPro programmers. Now they are imprisoned in an uncomfortable relationship.
    • Exactly as planned.

      They are supposed to switch to Access. Why do you think MS buys products that compete with its own? (Although to be honest they might have acquired FoxPro before Access existed.)

      Actually, they probably acquired Access from someone else too. All I know is, I've found Access to be completely useless, except possibly as a DB browser. I find it easier and more reliable to just do everything through ODBC and SQL, but then I would never attempt to write forms or anything applike in Access

  • no no no.. (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Suppafly ( 179830 ) <(ten.ylfappus) (ta) (todhsals)> on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:27PM (#7302629)
    ugh.. as nice as it would be to say proprietary software is bad, these are the results. That just is not the case.

    Proprietary software failed in this case because the people using it (stupidly) paid a lot of money for software that had no contingency plan or guarantee.

    To use a popular /. analogy, when I buy a ford car, I have no guarantee that I'll be supported after ford goes out of business.

    When you pay a lot of money for something with no service guarantee of any kind, stuff like this happens. Sure using OSS may have helped with this problem, but OSS has a whole slew of other problems.

    If its merely a license key issue, I'm sure these "developers" could get around that. Judging by the number of keygen programs for other software packages that come out the same day a program is released, this is a non-issue.
    • Auto firms build engine components to open, published standards. Because of this, there are many aftermarket parts companies making parts for most cars.

      Car components that are developed to open specs are not licensed to a particular car, so you are free to salvage parts from wrecked or otherwise inoperable vehicles.
    • Sorry but there are after markets for cars. You can still buy parts for Studebaker Avantis.

      Neither Studebaker or the Avanti have any market presence but there is an after market.

      The history of the auto market is a junk yard litered with companies that wrecked themselves faster than their customers wrecked their cars.
    • If its merely a license key issue, I'm sure these "developers" could get around that. Judging by the number of keygen programs for other software packages that come out the same day a program is released, this is a non-issue.

      This is the stupidest thing I've heard in a while. Do you realize that you're advocating breaking the law? That a company would actually have its developers crack software on company time? This is preposterous. No, in a commercial environment nobody is going to fucking waste their
      • The company that is essentially not in business anymore? I see this as Appgen is not holding up their end of the bargain and people are having to do what they need to to survive.

        I do not advocate piracy - these people have already paid to use this software. They are effectively *fixing* the situation. Now, if they continue on developing more appgen apps with cracked keys, that's a problem.
    • They will have to support your car for as long as it stays under warranty. Like 6 years 100000 miles or whatever. Otherwise they'll get sued.

    • Re:no no no.. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by tshak ( 173364 )
      I have no guarantee that I'll be supported after ford goes out of business

      Which is why hardly anyone would buy Daewoo's until GM picked them up. The same could be said for hardware as well. If you buy from a company that's not financially viable you could be stuck without support. I agree with you completely. This is the result of a bad business decision, not the result of using proprietary software.
  • This couldn't happen ...

    Err, I hope you're right, for Mono's sake. If Microsoft decides that enough's enough -- probably at the exact point in time that Microsoft has decided Mono has done enough to promote .Net technologies to the world, thank you -- and they decide to sue for patent infringement or whatever, well, then a court would get to decide what could happen with an open source project.

    Could the exact same scenario happen with an open source project? Well, no. There seem to be particulars in thi

  • Double screwed (Score:4, Funny)

    by mandreiana ( 591979 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:31PM (#7302675) Homepage
    One reportedly paid $10,000 to have Appgen ported to "SCO and UnixWare" in September, only weeks before the company went away.
    And now, Appgen dissapeared too!
  • This happened with my sequencer, Studio Vision Pro. The company, Opcode, was acquired by Gibson. I wanted to move my installation from my ancient powerbook to my G4, and found that Gibson was no longer supporting the product, and didn't leave a way for me to satisfy my key auth requirement (need a specific USB floppy drive to do it, if I am to do it at all!)

  • ...and commercial software doesn't bankrupt businesses. The problem here is the unethical behavior of the Appgen principals. To excoriate closed source software because of this is ridiculous. Yes, had the code been open this would have been prevented but that argument makes no sense. Because there is no open source alternative today I submit that the code could only exist in closed source...clearly there is neither a need nor advantage to having this product be open source (or it would already exist tha
  • As far as I know there is nothing in the open source world that would have meet the needs of the developers in this case. So are you all suggesting that they should have done nothing?
  • Why didn't they have an escrow agreement? We sell proprietary toolkits and almost all our clients demand escrow agreements. There are numerous companies providing your service. You send them your source code and updates. They legally agree to keep it safe and secure. (i.e. no peeking) Then if you go out of business your clients have access to the source code.

    This is FUD if people are arguing this is an Open Source / Closed Source issue.

    • Read the article. Most of the VARs DID have an escrow agreement, but discovered afterwards that Appgen had never actually given the code to the escrow agent.
  • The true cause of this problem is copy protection, not proprietary software vs. Open Source. If this product didn't use keygen based protection, you'd be able to use it in perpetuity, even if it was closed source. So bitch about copy protection, but if you gripe about closed source you just look like an idiot for griping about an irrelevant problem.
  • So how should one go about verifying that code escrow really exists?

    For the small developer, what's the lowest cost solution for legally verifiable code escrow? (That my brother has a copy of my backups isn't likely to be an acceptable answer... unless my brother is a major banks trusts & estates officer, and the code is held in a legal trust by the bank (== $$$ big legal fee's)).

  • Open vs. Closed souce isn't the issue. Yes open source avoids this type of problem, but it could have been avoided by a half decently run company. Appgen left its paying customers out in the cold when it went out of bussiness. They could have opened the source code or provided the key generator or whatever they need to do to provide thier customers with what they bought/contracted for. Appgen couldn't have disappeared overnight even quickly failing companies take months and months to go away and they ca
  • Open Source isn't the only way to have solved this problem. A simple thing called a source code escrow would have solved this problem. If this had existed, with the term that if company goes out of business or is otherwise unable or unwilling to fullfill it contractual obligations or have them fullfilled by a successor within 30 days, the escrow is broken, everything would have been fine.

    Of course, if you are a carpenter, ever tool is hammer and the world is filled with nails; and if you are an Open Source
  • Appgen was a piece of shit. I'm not surprised that the company that made it went out of business. There are many, many, many other much better alternatives, including coding something from scratch yourself.

    I feel sorry for all the people that payed for Appgen. I feel even more sorry for anyone that had to work with it. I only know of it because I had a contract working on Appgen maintenance programming once a couple of years back. Fortunately, the company I was working for supplied all the manuals an

  • Buy Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Camel Pilot ( 78781 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @01:57PM (#7302936) Homepage Journal
    I am sure there are those in the mega-corp world would see this as an example why you need to use Microsoft,Oracle, etc. because going with a smaller startup company could leave you stranded. Just a thought.

    • Re:Buy Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)

      by jonbryce ( 703250 )
      It is not beyond the bounds of possibility for Microsoft to go belly-up, especially after Bill Gates retires and is replaced with someone who has a different approach to management.

      If you are in the UK, you may have heard of a company called GEC Marconi. Under its previous director Lord Weinstock, it amassed a cash pile that was almost as big as Microsoft's. When he retired, he was replaced by another director who went on a huge spending spree and turn the huge cash pile into a huge debt pile.

      They were

  • Moneydance survived (Score:3, Informative)

    by Zapdos ( 70654 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @02:08PM (#7303041)
    Moneydance, a pretty good pfm written in java was acquired by Appgen some time back. They may have seen it as a competitor. It was released to its original author and was reborn as Moneydance 2003 in June of this year. It is supported and for sale. It is lucky to have survived, Appgen had stopped supporting it, and it all but vanished.

  • So let me get this straight..... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @02:50PM (#7303544) Journal
    A proprietary software company goes out of business and screws its' customers along the way.

    Thus, proprietary software is by nature a bad thing. AND, by the linked story's own formula, you're more likely to profit by going with open source.

    This is simply foolish. If all proprietary companies did this, then yes, you could draw this conclusion. But this was one (very badly run) company, and a small one at that. Small businesses close their doors all the time, sometimes leaving their customers high and dry. You think Appgen is the only one that's ever done this?

    How about all of the software companies that have suceeded? How about all of the companies that have supported their customers in good times and bad? For God's sake, IBM supported OS/2 for years, even when it was clear that few people were using it. There are hundreds of other examples I could give of software companies doing the RIGHT thing.

    Open Source is a software development model and philosophy.You can argue that it's a morally superior way of business, but not a more profitable one.

    And even if Appgen's code was open, that still doesn't get their customers off the hook. Where will those customers go for support? The VARs? There's only so much they can do. Even if the app was turned into a large coordinated open source project, it would still take time to assemble the proper volunteers and get the app back on track. And the customers are STILL screwed out of paid support.

    I have to agree with some other posters here. Mod the article -1 GNU/Preachy.

  • Interesting factoid... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by plopez ( 54068 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @03:17PM (#7303859) Journal
    Next time some one talks about how it is better to buy proprietary solutions because of better 'support' point out that the following;
    of all the technologies traded in th NYSE in the early 1970s, only IBM is left.

    Sperry - gone.
    Burroughs - gone.
    DataGeneral - gone.
    CDC - gone.

    The list goes on. Thier proprietary solutions by and large are dead. DEC merged with Compaq which got bought out by HP and now the Alpha and VMS are orphans.

    HP is in a death spiral.

    MS is a new kid on the block (Burroughs for example was around for 50 years or more), and so should be regarded as shaky.

    Other companies made forays into computing but pulled the plug in the 60's and 70's. Technology is a VERY volatile industry, the only way to really cover yourself is by getting the source code.

  • Those who do not learn from the past... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Friday October 24, 2003 @05:47PM (#7305141) Homepage

    A couple interesting stories from our past and our present along these lines:

    The 1960 and 1970 US Census tract level data (tract level means a subdivision of a county) are available only in a proprietary compressed format. This is because the US Government hired a programming firm (Dualabs) to write a compression scheme to be used on this census data [clir.org]. Dualabs wrote the program, compressed the data, and distributed the decompressor program. Census data archivists around the country only got the compressed version of the data. The US Government never made it a point to get the complete corresponding source code to that decompressor program, nor did they get a license to share and modify the program (which would have required source code to do well). The computers people initally used with the decompressor program became outmoded and the decompressor program only ran on that obsolete platform.

    Dualabs went out of business in 1974. Therefore, we, the public, paid for Census data we cannot completely read even to this day without reverse engineering the compressed data format. Census data is unarguably important and few people know about this lack of foresight on the part of the US Government and Dualabs. This story has many lessons, most of which still have not been learned.

    Recently the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign switched from using 5 web-based programs to do class-related stuff online (display student's grades, allow students to receive class material, discuss class projects with each other, etc.). Not long ago, UIUC dropped support for all of these programs and began supporting only Illinois Compass ("powered by WebCT Vista", as the program's proprietors tell us). Illinois Compass is non-free software and costs UIUC one million dollars a year (which UIUC is paying).

    UIUC is widely known for having talented software programmers and a highly regarded college of engineering. For orders of magnitude less than $1M/yr UIUC could have paid a few students to leverage the huge pool of capable, tested, and time-honored Free Software out there in order to make a web-based bulletin board system to replace the 5 programs UIUC dropped support for. Now, with Illinois Compass, UIUC pays a team of local support staff (on top of the $1M/yr program fee) to support the new program. UIUC has no source code for Illinois Compass (let alone a license allowing them to share and modify the program). So now UIUC risks running into the same problem the US Government ran into should the proprietor's support for Illinois Compass disappear.

    Sometimes these lessons take a long time to learn and cost the public a lot of money.

  • We buy the source. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by mekkab ( 133181 ) on Friday October 24, 2003 @06:33PM (#7305438) Homepage Journal
    Our supplier companies have been bought out, dropped production, decided that just stopping and giving us source was more cost effective than making all the fixes our contract demanded, etc.

    Due to the enormous length of our software development life cycle (10+ years!) we end up supporting a LOT of CAS.

    And we do it by buying the source.

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